The present application relates to a flexible fan module, and more particularly, to a fan module utilizing the concept of male-female type connection to modulize a fan assembly thereby having flexible combinations.
Heat-dissipating fan device is a commonly used technology in various industrial equipments, particularly in the electronic equipments having broad applications. With the maturity of integrated circuit technologies, all kinds of electronic products have been developing towards the aspects of lightness, thinness, shortness and smallness. Hence, various mechanisms of fan assembly are developed and presented to the market continuously.
For example, Taiwan Patent Publication No. 468891 discloses a power supply structure having a removable fan base, wherein the fan base cannot be sorely removed without dismantling a hollow main body of the power supply; Taiwan Patent Publication No. 339863 discloses a modulized heat-dissipating fan, wherein, since no female type structure is designed, extra mechanisms have to be designed for fixing the fan, and it takes a specific angle to remove the fan unit, so that it is quite uneasy to replace the fan unit; Taiwan Patent Publication No. 395528 discloses a removable fan structure, wherein no female structure exists, and the main structure of the fan assembly has to be greatly modified if the number and design of fans are changed, and further it is impossible to replace each of the fans individually. To sump up, just as described above, the existing fan products merely have a male-type design, and lack of a female-type design, so that extra elements have to be designed for fixing and connecting the components of the fans. Moreover, the overall space occupied by each of the fan products is quite large and does not have any flexibility to be adjusted. Thus, when it is necessary to increase the number of fans, the difficulty level associated therewith is very high, so that the heat-dissipation demands cannot be met through the increase of fan components. On the other hand, while the fan main unit needs replacing, the mechanism of target device (such as the main housing of person computer) of which the heat needs dissipating has to be first dismantled, and the mechanism of the entire fan assembly has be dismantled subsequently, such as a plurality of screws or fastening elements, etc., so as to eventually complete the replacement of the fan main unit.
Hence, there is an urgent need to develop a flexible fan module for overcoming the shortcomings of the conventional fan assembly mechanisms, wherein the fan module has a concise mechanism, and is able to replace its main unit rapidly, and is easily applicable in the number of one or more fan modules to the mechanism of a target device of which heat is desired to be dissipated without extra designs of fixing mechanism needed.
Just as described above, the conventional fan assembly mechanism is not only difficult to be dismantled and replaced, causing the increase of maintenance cost, but also lacking of the design flexibility of increasing the number of fans, so that the heat-dissipation demands can not be satisfied due to the difficulty of expanding fan components.
Therefore, it is an object of the present application to provide a flexible fan module utilizing the concept of male-female type connection to form a modulized fan assembly, thereby overcoming the difficulty of replacing a conventional fan main unit.
It is another object of the present application to provide a flexible fan module for fulfilling the heat dissipation demands by flexibly increasing the number of fans with keeping the minimum mechanism change of target device of which heat is to be dissipated.
It is another object of the present application to provide a flexible fan module for combining connecting members with the fan main unit into one, wherein no extra design of connecting elements is needed. Merely with some simple fixing elements such as screws, the female member can be fixed on the target device without extra designs of fixing elements needed, thereby attaining the targets of convenience and integrity on mechanism designs.
In accordance with the aforementioned objects of the present application, the present application provides a flexible fan module comprising: a fan main unit; a female member having at least one fixing hole through which the female member can be firmly fixed on a target device by at least one fixing elements (such as screws); a female connecting member having a protrusion, a plurality of female connecting pins and a plurality of female connecting holes, wherein the protrusion is tightly inset in a recession portion located on the female member, and the connecting pins are connected to the fan main unit thereby connecting the female member to the fan main unit; a male member of which each of both sides has a plurality of stripe elements, wherein the utmost outer two stripe elements have a plurality of raised portions which is corresponding and tightly connected to a plurality of female notches located on the female member, and the open ends of the two stripe elements adjacent to the utmost outer two ones have a plurality of extension portions for insetting in the female connecting holes; a handler member having a plurality of handler connecting pins used for connecting the handler member to the fan main unit via the male connecting holes. According to the present application, the female member, the female connecting member and the male member are made of material of resilience, such as plastic, so that the members can be tightly connected to each other. The present application only needs to first use fixing elements to implement the required female members on a target device, and then to sequentially inset all other members besides female members in each other, and thereafter to insert each of the female connecting members into each of the female members. Since the present application only needs to use the space occupied by the female members, the present application has good expandability. On the other hand, to dismantle and replace the fan main unit, it merely needs to pull the female connecting member out of the female member, and then just to dismantle the handler member and the male member in sequence.